Photographer behind Obama's selfie speaks out, insisting Michelle Obama wasn't upset: 'Her stern look was captured by chance'.
AFP photographer Roberto Schmidt was responsible for capturing the moment President Obama posed for a selfie with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt and British PM David Cameron. But the photog insists Michelle Obama wasn't upset and is bemoaning all the news the simple snap has generated. 'I guess it's a sign of our times that somehow this image seemed to get more attention than the event itself,' Schmidt wrote in a blog post.
It was the click heard round the world.
Now the photographer who captured the picture of President Obama posing for a selfie during Nelson Mandela's memorial service is speaking out, insisting Michelle Obama wasn't upset at her husband's display.
"Photos can lie," Roberto Schmidt, the AFP photographer responsible for the shot, wrote in a blog post "The story behind 'that selfie.'"
Schmidt says the First Lady herself had been joking and laughing with other dignitaries seated around her just moments before Obama's selfie scandal.
Onlookers reviewing the First Lady's glare in the pictures took to social media Tuesday, passing judgement that the President's wife was not impressed, but also decrying the world leaders for engaging in such frivolity at an historic occasion.
Schmidt, a German-Colombian photojournalist based in India, admitted that he had no idea how much news his picture would generate.
Despite the worldwide attention the one picture has garnered, he did bemoan the fact it took attention away from the real news event — the remembrance ceremony for the anti-apartheid leader.
He also expressed his regret that the work of his colleagues, also photographing the thousands of mourners who gathered at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, went unnoticed.
Source : blogs.afp.com
